


Agitators

by purglepurglepurgle



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Darkfic, Gen, Satire, dark humour, everyone is terrible, intelligence work, malleable rhetoric, political fiction, unsubtle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:54:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23549473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purglepurglepurgle/pseuds/purglepurglepurgle
Summary: The President briefs the General Affairs team on some intelligence work he wants done. Just me lecturing through fanfic, pretty much. Darkfic.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	Agitators

**Author's Note:**

> I have a few political fics I wanna post before the remake comes out and they confuse everyone (for anyone reading in the future: my fics are always for the OG, unless otherwise specified). This one's pretty much an essay, but it was more fun to write it this form. :P Hopefully an entertaining bit of soapboxing, as soapboxing goes? But still, apologies in advance if it isn't. May clean up the prose at some point.
> 
> I don't have the same headcanons or characterisations from fic to fic.
> 
> General Affairs are not fluffy in this fic.

"Welcome," said the President. The members of General Affairs took their seats around his table. Tseng was already there, sitting to the President's right, with a stack of papers.

"I have a task for you all," said the President. He steepled his fingers, and began. "As I hope you are aware, Shinra are bringing a new product to the market-- mako injections. As used on SOLDIER. For stronger muscles, bones, and everything in between." The President paused. "Now, owing to outdated and overenthusiastic regulation, the tests for their safety have not proven satisfactory. We intend to press on with the release regardless, but we are seeing some public unrest. There are rumours that the drugs have negative side effects-- spurious rumours, I trust you understand."

"Oh, of _course,_ " said Reno, with a big wink. Elena kicked him.

"We're seeing agitators working together to conduct unauthorised investigations and make a fuss. For example, they're lobbying shops to avoid stocking the treatments. And they’re making a lot of noise online. If this keeps on, it could affect our projected quarterly profit-- not to mention, your bonuses."

"So, take 'em out?" Reno tapped his mag-rod on his shoulder.

The President shook his head. "Not exactly. I'd use SOLDIER for that. No, the optics would be bad enough to cause us further problems. We need something more subtle.” He paused. “What I want you to do is go in there-- infiltrate these silly reactionary groups-- and split them up. Tseng can give you the details."

Tseng nodded, and cleared his throat. "If they're all fighting with each other, they won't have much time left over for us. So the plan is to give them a push. We'll invent or unearth some positions-- warring tribes, if you will-- and demand everyone declare loyalties. Document a history of past slights. And, while we're there, we can use the chaos to push our own agenda."

"Wutai again," said Rude.

Tseng nodded. "Exactly. Though we'll do more of it online, this time around. For example-- a woman wrote Shinra's research paper on the injection procedure. One of you can position scepticism toward the injections as an antifeminist stance. Actually, two of you; we'll have one feminist blog and one that hates women, both arguing that the injections are women's work." Tseng smiled. "We'll paint any objection to the injections as part of a targeted hate campaign against the scientist in question. We don't have to invent all that much; we've got plenty of real incidents to pick from-- we're just going to give them a new spin." Tseng took a sip of water. "With the help of the marketing team, we've produced a few alternate histories to disseminate, for members of the public to choose between and fight over." Tseng smiled. "For example, on one narrative, these injections would help disproportionately disadvantaged groups-- scepticism about the medicine has arisen from bigotry and a desire to restrict access to care."

" _Vital_ care," said the President.

"So, get online, and get talking. The key thing is for you to be as aggressive and abusive to each other as possible when you argue, and toward any who question you. It doesn't particularly matter what you're arguing for, as long as you're fighting. It doesn’t even have to be directly related to the medicine. As much as anything, we want to encourage a generalised anxiety and fear of speaking. I'll send you a primer on relationship abuse tactics, since the techniques are transferable; essentially you want a combination of love-bombing, isolating and gaslighting your supporters, and attacking your foes. Some cyberstalking, doxxing, deaththreats-- get creative. Name names. Blacklists. What we're aiming at is a lightweight cult-- or rather, multiple cults. Once you've got the ball rolling, you should find the masses take over easily enough; don't worry about steering the narrative too much. The voices we really want to silence are any and all who ask 'reasonable' questions."

The President nodded. "That brand of scepticism is very dangerous to progress."

"Ideally, we foster an environment so toxic that no rational person will even approach the subjects under discussion. 'With us or against us', 'spineless bootlickers', 'appeasers', you know the drill. Portray requests for evidence as acts of aggression. Imply that anyone asking questions has an ulterior motive, so that we can conflate reasoning with immorality. Untrustworthy data? _All_ data is untrustworthy. Education? I think you mean, 'establishment propaganda'. Revise history however you want, and sic the mob on anyone who contradicts you, until nobody bothers to argue any more. This way we can work unobserved, and get our jobs done. It's an investment. We have plenty of other products in the pipeline."

"So," said Reno, "I get to call Laney names and get paid for it?"

"Yes, as long as you get enough other people to join in." Tseng turned to her. "Elena, you can conceivably be a student, so we'll install you at Midgar North University."

"Nerd," said Reno.

"The medical establishment, you see," said Tseng, struggling not to smirk, "is controlled by men, and has long ignored the needs of women-- usefully for us. Perhaps the testing procedures are similarly sexist. Perhaps medicines with incredible benefits for women are falling through the cracks. I'll get you some bandanas and a peasant skirt or two." He passed her a pack of papers. "Have you played agent provocateur before?"

Elena shook her head.

"The dressup's the best part," said Tseng. "Reno, Working Men's Club. Rich academics hoarding drugs for themselves, robbing the little guy." He passed Reno some papers, too. "I have some work to do with the diaspora. Treatment withheld along racial lines. While we're at it, I'm going to start a fight over who should be allowed to speak; who really _counts_ as Wutaian; that went down quite well last time."

Reno snickered. RIP _Wutaian Liberation Society_. Those poor fuckers had almost had a chance.

"And, all of you, make sure you forward the details of any dissenters you stumble across; we might as well gather some intelligence while we're at it. That goes double for you, Rude." Tseng passed him the final pack of paper. "You're going to start a blog about how the drugs are dangerous and ineffective. You'll cite a study that will turn out to be funded by a Shinra subsidiary; we'll expose it at some point. Maybe we'll kick down the doors of some of your subscribers... Well, we'll see what Heidegger says. Anyway, we're going to imply that another branch of Shinra is working on a competing and more expensive product and you're an establishment plant. Oh, and you're an AVALANCHE sympathiser now; they're bound to blow something up sooner or later. Are you a terrorist, or a fraud-- either way, nobody should be listening to you!" Tseng couldn't hold back his laughter this time. "We'll send a few anonymous tips to respected and established academics, and encourage them to follow you; if we get the timing right, the substantive discussion will be lost in the noise over their suspected bigotry and violence."

"And they'll all have made their share of foolish comments, if we dig deep enough," said the President.

"Yes, that bit's beautiful in its simplicity," said Tseng. "Dig deep, interpret creatively-- all the arguments are readymade. Before this meeting, I tried to come up with a statement too nonsensical for anyone to have posted, and it proved impossible. I even tried "belief in the lifestream is homophobic; opposing mako reactors is thinly-veiled homophobia", I searched it-- three blogposts. We can use any crank views from the last 20 years, and make it look like they've been at the center of discussion for _decades_. Because the bigotry, the prejudice, the discrimination-- all of it's real. We're just repurposing it. So when someone says 'that's a fringe view' or 'that makes no sense', we can call them a bigot or uneducated or both." He smiled. "Any questions?"


End file.
